kjh

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An off the cuff remark gets blown out of proportion by jealous wrestlers protective of their spots and insecure about their abilities as they age. Sounds like typical pro wrestling to me!

Whatever happened to living your gimmick? I suppose dressing right and looking the same as everyone else is more important than getting over.

I've updated my post above.

I assume that ranking is based on reporters within their region. Konnan's percentage wouldn't include reporters outside of Mexico who aren't lucha experts. Roy Shire's percentage wouldn't include reporters who had little knowledge of wrestling history before 1980. And so on. It's interesting comparing last year's Mexican results to this year's results: By my calculation that's 48 less Mexican voters than last year. Assuming Dave sent out as many ballots this year as he did last year, it doesn't seem like he was tossing votes on the woodpile for Paco Alonso from people who weren't exactly lucha experts. Which suggests that he treats a candidate like Konnan, whose career crossed more than one region differently than other candidates, by tossing votes from American voters who he believes are voting for Konnan based on his American achievements.

I thought he was working in the WWF's Memphis developmental territory as a trainer for the WWF at the time.

Not obsessed, just trying to get Dave to unambiguously explain his voting system. I'm trying to walk Dave through the following implications of what he's been saying: (a) the rules on the ballot aren't clearly explained, as at least some voters clearly have misconceptions about the current system and have had them for years; ( the current system is not sufficiently transparent as votes from voters outside their regions of expertise are going unreported; and © voters may vote differently if they truly understood the system. It's really no skin off my nose if Dave doesn't care about the implications of the voting system as it stands; it's his HOF after all.

My latest response to Dave:

Fujiwara was in 21 of the 75 Other Japan matches, more than anyone else. His matches also performed best in the overall voting results. Only 2 matches fell in the bottom third of the results and they finished 54th and 61st. So he had no matches in the Other Japan set that were universally hated by the voters and shouldn't have been on the set. Maybe you should cut Schneider, goodhelmet and Childs a little slack, as none of the Fujiwara matches on the Other Japan set didn't deserve to be there? Obviously taste influences the DVD sets selection, but I think the fact that they could select 175 matches and still miss out a few matches that were conventionally well thought of, also goes to show just how much footage they had to trawl through and how many hidden gems they found through watching all the available footage.

I'm beginning to think Dave is the only person who truly understands how his HOF voting system works. From a Cien Caras in the HOF thread, where my misconceptions prompted a confusing reply from Dave:

From the Sep. 29th 2009 Figure Four Weekly: Bryan's news update the next day:

I'd add that even bullshit needs to have a purpose and make some sort of sense. Russo is notorious for having bullshit that goes nowhere or flies in the face of logical storytelling just to swerve the fans.

I think Dave mentioned somewhere that every Japanese wrestler and writer given a ballot voted for Saito. That's why he's in. Clearly the perspective of Saito's career is different inside the Japanese wrestling business than outside it in America. My gut feeling is that they're marks for his relative success in America.

Better all-around wrestler - Guerrero or Benoit?

Reminds me of the time Kurt Angle buried Eddie Guerrero to Dave Meltzer for being unable to keep up with him because he had the audacity to sell during their matches together. I suppose once a lazy and clumsy wrestler, always one, or the burial mutates when Dave doesn't buy your original talking point anymore. I don't really buy the gushing Hase praise for the New Japan boom period in the '90s. I'm not sure being a booker's right hand man should be enough to get in the Hall Of Fame on its own and their are a ton of guys who were more important in the ring than him (Inoki, Choshu, Fujinami, Tenryu, Takada, Vader, Hashimoto, Mutoh, Chono, even Liger and Sasaki). At least with Taue, he was constantly in the main event mix from 1991-2000 and had plenty of one off main events on major NOAH shows over the next decade.

I agree with Bret likely being a poor fit as a manager. I think he'd just end up overshadowing Harry, TJ and Nattie, if he became their manager.

It should be noted that Miller got 70% of the U.S. and Canada historical vote, not 70% of the U.S. and Canada modern vote, which is a much higher threshold and by the old standard only got 34% of the vote and would not have been inducted. Moolah still obtained 20 more votes than Miller. I know Moolah wrestled forever and had her biggest match in 1984 as part of the Brawl To Settle It All, but it's still strange to consider her a modern candidate when she was born 4 years earlier than Bill Miller. At this point I can't see Hans Schmidt not getting in eventually, though it may take a few years. Four wrestlers going in really opens up the ballot, especially when there aren't four really strong new candidates to replace them. With the change in rules, we'll probably see more years with a large number of candidates being elected.

Steve's pieces are actually very opinionated (and thus very subjective), but he backs up his opinions as far as possible with facts. All wrestling analysis is subjective, but good analysis is well informed not based on romantic nostalgia or tired conventional wisdom.

This week's Wrestling Observer newsletter confirmed that Bret has been in informal talks to return to the promotion as a weekly storyline character, so there is substance to these rumours. Given that they've already started rehashing Montreal, I wouldn't be surprised if Bret gets cold feet when he finds out what storylines the creative team have planned for him. Really I don't see the point of bringing him back in a full time role. Due to the affects of his stroke, he can't work a match and may be unable to deliver an effective scripted promo. The GM role, his likely spot, is already played out and Bret wasn't anything special in similar roles in the past. Also, Bret means nothing to their target audience of kids and teenagers; whatever money there was to be made in a storyline playing off Montreal has largely evaporated over the years. I can see the benefit of using him in one-off angles at WrestleMania and major shows in Canada, but I don't think it really benefits either side him being a full time TV performer again.

I completely agree with what tomk said. Really the "reporter" classification is a bit of a misnomer, as there are only a handful of people who really break wrestling news stories today (Dave Meltzer, then a bit of a drop off to the likes of Bryan Alvarez, Wade Keller and Michael Johnson). HOF voters Bruce Mitchell, Todd Martin and Dan Wahlers aren't pro wrestling reporters, they're pro wrestling columnists and commentators. Not really that much different to what a well informed regular message poster or blogger does, though they don't have a column on an official wrestling website. Of course, people like that are unlikely to get given a vote by Dave, because Dave mimics his HOF electorate to that in other sports in an effort to legitimize his HOF. When the standards of wrestling journalism are so low, it's a bad idea to copy what other sports do, just because that's what they do.

To be fair, now that Dave has put the historical candidates into their own bucket, Dan having a ballot isn't quite as bad as it once was. Still, any heat should be placed on Dave for giving Dan a ballot in the first place, not on Dan for having one.